Darkness Undreamt
by VulkansNodosaurus
Summary: Two fleets, from two Craftworlds quite unhappy with each other. An Exodite world aflame. Can hope flow once more between the stars? Can truth, at least? Written August 2014.


Sarhykora watched the Exodite world burn.

She had chosen the Path of the Mariner in the ideal of discovery in both seeing the galaxy and understanding herself. In reality, the former was preventing the latter.

Altansar's fleet had arrived too late, the Biel-Tan autarch had spat; that was assuredly a sign of Chaos corruption. Not that Biel-Tan, themselves, had arrived soon enough to save Ulcarex; the Imperium of Man had already destroyed the World Spirit by that time. And at least the Altansar fleet had arrived soon enough to save that of Biel-Tan.

Now Ulcarex was afire again, this time from the massive mon-keigh starships plummeting through its atmosphere and hammering into its ground. The desolation didn't matter. Every Eldar, and most everything else, on the planet was already dead.

"How can we blame the Enemy for this?" Riexcat, standing next to Sarhykora, wondered. "Does this not prove Eldrad's words on specieswise folly?"

"Biel-Tan nearly fired on us," Sarhykora answered, in the whisper that the Pact forbade the Altansarians from breaking, "folly breathes in all species."

Sarhykora watched, inactive in the face of distant apocalypse. What was there to do, but save oneself? And the crimson blooms on Ulcarex's surface, ugly as Orks (not that some mon-keigh didn't see beauty even in the swirls of the Eye – well, psychically inactive races had evolved independent ways of quantifying beauty, and humanity was on that fascinating brink between matter and aether) and just as ruinous, dominated the emotions of every Eldar on the fleets, no matter the Craftworld. They had failed. Shamefully, and utterly.

Sarhykora watched, as her kind watched across the fleet, and across time. This moment had been foreseen dozens of times; Ulthwe did not allow such convergences to go unnoticed. And even before the fleet had left, Sarhykora had heard this outcome whispered more often than any other. They had gone nonetheless, because there was a promise. And – though it had been as unspoken, even unthought, as so much of this – they had gone in an attempt to understand. To observe yet another armageddon and to understand, in orbit over crimson greens, something about the changes wrought to the galaxy during their stay in the realm beyond reality.

That was what they had become, now. Watchers. And what did one expect, from an empire's eyes that had been cut off from its soul? The Craftworlds had never been meant to be alone. Each dealt with loss in their own way, whether by denial like Biel-Tan or by regression like Saim-Hann. Sarhykora could understand many insults aimed at her species, but it could never be said that Eldar did not grieve.

Of course, that was all they had now. There was a reason Altansar had almost faded, before the Pact.

"What is the occasion," a loud voice said from behind Sarhykora and Riexcat, "observing your handiwork?"

The Altansarians turned to face their partial ally. Aurhzh'ach, the representative of Biel-Tan's fleet on the _Goldlit Moment_, was a mariner and not a diplomat, but that did not excuse his obsession with antagonizing his hosts.

"We should not have come at all," Riexcat snapped, "seen how your warhost would have done without us."

"As well as we were fated to," Aurhzh'ach replied, leading Riexcat to shake his head in frustration. Sarhykora knew that Aurhzh'ach was far more hateful towards Altansar even than most of his Craftworld; that was most likely why he had been sent here, to learn his error. Or, perhaps, simply in the hope that someone would lose their temper and shoot him.

"Your ingratitude does your reputation no service," Sarhykora calmly noted, "neither personal nor worldwide, xenophobia is not a virtue."

Aurhzh'ach shrugged. "Endless vigilance," he said by way of explanation, "Chaos is everywhere, tendrils on Biel-Tan too."

That was true; Eldar did fall to Chaos, though extremely rarely, on every Craftworld. The logical connection to anything they were talking about was absent, of course, but logic was no more Aurhzh'ach's strong point than it was for the mon-keigh.

"My shift begins soon," Riexcat said, "I wonder if your visit had a point besides accusing us."

"No," Aurhzh'ach said with a smile. Riexcat punched the air in luminous rage, before leaving the room, hair crackling with power. The Biel-Tanian waited for a few moments before continuing his tirade. "I see you for what you truly are," he said, with his own brand of twisted anger, "the others think me a fanatic, you are the true faithful. Faithful of darkness. You have abandoned the old gods for a monster."

He was not entirely wrong.

There were times, Sarhykora knew, when she herself regretted the Pact. They had lost as much as they gained in it, truly. Gave freedom for survival.

"If I took off your helmet," Aurhzh'ach asked, coming closer, "what would I see?"

There was a momentary psychic flare, and Sarhykora wondered what had possessed the diplomat. They grappled physically, too, as the Biel-Tanian yanked a blade from his belt, trying to press it into Sarhykora's side before his psychic defenses collapsed.

He did not succeed, and flopped to the floor unconscious, the dagger clattering onto the deck. Sarhykora glanced at him, then pushed the indignation from her mind. She would deal with the diplomat later. Coming up to the window, she looked towards Ulcarex, watching the Exodite world continue to die.

_If I took off your helmet, what would I see?_

A well-shaped Eldar face. Long cerulean hair. Ears slightly longer than species average. And, in the place of eyes, spheres of shadow, the mark of their god.

The world below was failing, like so many of the Exodites. Biel-Tan's so-called empire was shrinking with each decade. Yet the Craftworlds themselves still lived on – if that was life. They watched. And they lingered.

Like the last of their species' gods, Altansar's partner in the Pact.

"I only hope all this was not in vain," she whispered quieter than usual, to herself and to Qah, "and that in darkness undreamt truth shall flow once more."


End file.
